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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27347089">En Abyme</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/solarfemm/pseuds/solarfemm'>solarfemm</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Captain America (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universes, Loki made them do it, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, do not copy to another site, great american road trips, sorry I don't know what to tag this</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 01:15:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>9,968</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27347089</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/solarfemm/pseuds/solarfemm</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>As Steve closes his eyes against the burning sensation in his palm, the hot surge of light, bright as the sun and shaking the room like an earthquake, Bucky’s arms tighten around his waist. Steve finds them with his own hand and braces himself for impact.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>En Abyme</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>NOTE: This work is unfinished, and will not be completed.</p>
<p>so this is something I wrote literally five or six years ago when I was a better writer and never finished. and I haven't finished it now. I thought I might as well put it out in the world. </p>
<p>the song referenced is Jimmy Barnes's "Stone Cold" (yep Australia actually has a singer called Jimmy Barnes, trust me I got a lot of enjoyment out of that. Also he's incredible, check out "Stone Cold" here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D99LZg18OWg&amp;ab_channel=OfficialJimmyBarnes and then check out "Flame Trees")</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The reports had started flowing in regularly weeks ago, worlds razed and debts paid, enough time for Natasha and Hill to salvage what was left of the Avengers Initiative and prepare. By some stroke of cosmic luck or cosmic joke, they manage to corner Loki on the tail end of his galaxy-wide revenge spree. Like the last time Loki visited, New York is a war ground: it looks like something picked it up and shook it. Loki is alone, standing in the wreckage of the Tower’s trophy room in caped and horned glory, but even sans army the weapons he’s brought along do just as much damage. Even cornered he looks nothing but triumphant.</p>
<p>“Seriously,” Clint said, for probably the third time, as they made their way down fifteen storeys of rubble and warped concrete under the Avengers Tower, “whose brilliant idea was it to keep an infinity gem on the planet we live? I wanna know whose ass to kick.”</p>
<p>After being pulled out of unofficial semi-retirement-slash-forced sabbatical at Natasha’s request, to face yet another threat to the planet and life as they knew it, Steve shares the sentiment. He was just growing to like a life without orders to follow and risking his own personal safety every week; it mostly consisted of driving through all the towns he’d missed in the American leg of his manhunt for Bucky two years before, this time with Bucky in the passenger seat criticising his taste in music instead of Sam.</p>
<p>Both Bucky and Sam are beside him now, still, ready for action in all the ways Steve has grown rusty. His arm is still bruised from Bucky pulling him out of the way of a falling billboard and the gun in his hand feels heavier than it should.</p>
<p>Enough people have their weapons trained on him that Loki makes a show of raising his hands, but doesn’t back away from the case in front of him and the stone inside, its faint yellow glow spreading throughout the room, into the shadows and edges of Steve’s vision. Steve steps forward, shield held tightly in his hand. </p>
<p>“Loki,” he says, as authoritarian as he can with a mouthful of soot and dust, “I’m gonna ask you to step away from the stone, and I’m only gonna ask once.”</p>
<p>Loki smirks, delighted as always to have an audience. “My dear Captain Rogers, do you really think I’ve come all this way to stop now? You must think me as weak and stupid as your attack dogs.”</p>
<p>Tony’s suit whirrs as he raises his arm. “Okay, playtime’s done. Surrender, Loki, or we’re taking you down.” Never mind that the eight of them together haven’t been able to do that yet. Loki calls Tony’s bluff and extends his arms wider, making himself an easier target. All weapons in the room rise simultaneously; the Hulk growls. “How about this: surrender now and, when we beat you, we won’t hand your sorry ass back to Thanos.”</p>
<p>The effect of Tony’s words is immediate. Loki’s face turns into a sneer and he lowers his arms, dropping into a crouch. He lunges for the stone at the same time Steve lunges for him, as bullets fire and the metal of Bucky’s arm flashes in Steve’s vision, and they collide.</p>
<p>As Steve closes his eyes against the burning sensation in his palm, the hot surge of light, bright as the sun and shaking the room like an earthquake, Bucky’s arms tighten around his waist. Steve finds them with his own hand and braces himself for impact.</p>
<p>//</p>
<p>A hand closes around Steve’s shoulder and he jerks back, disoriented by the fall, the light and then the lack of it. It bleeds into familiar surroundings: not the half-demolished tower of crumbling concrete but the fresh expanse of hills and rocky edges, the black dashboard and worn interior of the rental car he’s sitting in, a book on his lap that falls into the footwell when his flailing dislodges it. The hand on his shoulder tightens cautiously, and the eyes above it, the blue-gray of roiling oceans, narrow in concern.</p>
<p>“Steve,” Bucky says, shaking him slightly, “you were dreaming.”</p>
<p>Steve shifts in his seat, tugs at the seat belt cutting into his chest, glances around to get his bearings. Bucky’s hand falls to join the other on the steering wheel, metal and flesh held in the 10-2 position, meticulous and carefully controlled, the way he is when he drives. He was always a stickler for the rules. The back seat holds their duffel bags, assorted fast food wrappers, a map of the pacific northwest.</p>
<p>“Where are we?”</p>
<p>“Highway 59, just outside Douglas. Don’t know where you are, though.” Bucky flashes a grin, one which Steve feels is put on for his sake and not an extension of Bucky's emotions. He’s a lot better at expressing himself these days, but Steve still has a ways to go with reading him.</p>
<p>“But, we were just--Loki,” Steve says, at a loss.</p>
<p>Bucky’s brow creases as he glances back at the road. “I don’t know that one,” he says, thoughtfully. “Is it like I Spy? Because that one sucks.”</p>
<p>“He was--we were right there. He had the stone.” As his initial panic subsides it leaves more room for confusion. “Wyoming?”</p>
<p>“Home of the jackalope and the most photographed barn in America.”</p>
<p>“Didn’t we already pass that? I could’ve sworn.”</p>
<p>Bucky gives him a look, like maybe Steve bumped his head. </p>
<p>“How long was I out?”</p>
<p>“A couple minutes.”</p>
<p>Steve shakes his head to clear it, flexes his hand from the phantom pain of--he must have touched the stone. Hill spent forty minutes detailing all the reasons that no one should go near it, and Steve touched it. He can still feel its warmth, can feel Bucky’s arms around his waist.</p>
<p>“Want to find a hotel for the night?”</p>
<p>It’s not yet evening, judging from the sun’s position, but Steve nods anyway. Bucky reaches over to squeeze his hand and, just like that, the pain is gone. He offers a smile and squeezes back, grateful for the comfort Bucky gives him, and stares out the window, giving in to the feeling of deja vu that flourishes at each landmark, cliff face, spread of grass reaching the horizon. A voice on the stereo croons, <i>I built my heart up on the sweet foundations you give me</i>, and Bucky sings along tonelessly.</p>
<p>The first motel they drive up to is the standard two-star chain deal that beats sleeping cramped in the backseat of the car but not much else--Steve knows even before they make it into reception because it’s the same one they’ve already stayed in. The clerk is the same pimply-faced teenager who barely looks up from her novel as she rings them up and tosses a set of keys on the counter. Bucky pays in cash and makes a joke about the detail in the mountain paintings that adorn the walls, just like he did last time.</p>
<p>Steve almost says something as he follows Bucky to their room but thinks better of it. How many times in the last week had he wished he was back here, in this motel or any other like it, listening to Bucky’s taste in contemporary music, eating fast food and drinking beer by the side of the road as the sun set in front of them, waking every day to Bucky only three feet away, sleeping safely? Steve tries to convince himself that the last week never happened, that they were never called away, that there’s nothing ahead of them except run-down attractions that were popular decades ago.</p>
<p>It almost works.</p>
<p>Steve drops his duffel on one bed and feels Bucky do the same behind him, moving fluidly around the room as he checks for bugs and weaknesses in the floorboards, the usual. Steve swivels around, mouth open on a question, when Bucky strides purposefully into his space, licks his lips, and presses into Steve’s body with single-minded intent.</p>
<p>Steve’s first thought is comfort in Bucky’s routine, that he made sure they were safe and that he can and always will let his guard down around Steve; his second thought is that Bucky is kissing him. It’s soft but insistent, Bucky’s mouth is open but he’s not pushing, his body still like he’s tense, he’s nervous. Steve can feel it in the grip he has on the pulse point of Bucky’s wrist. Bucky’s expressions aren’t always clear but his body gives him away, and Steve can read the language of it just as clearly as ever.</p>
<p>Steve is too shocked to respond and then Bucky pulls away, the kiss is over too quickly. “What--” Steve says, as Bucky steps back, head ducked, stammering out, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have--it’s okay. If it was a one-time thing, I understand. I shouldn’t have pushed.”</p>
<p>Steve’s mind is still stuck on a loop of kissing Bucky, Bucky kissing him, him failing to kiss back. He touches three fingers to his lips, still wet with Bucky’s spit. “A one time thing? What’re you--”</p>
<p>“You didn’t say, before, and I--shouldn’t have assumed, sorry.” Bucky moves to step away, almost shrugs off the hand Steve reaches out to stop him with.</p>
<p>“What do you mean, before?”</p>
<p>“You kissed me.” Bucky says it so matter of factly that it takes a minute for Steve to react.</p>
<p>“No, you kissed me.”</p>
<p>“When?”</p>
<p>“Just now.”</p>
<p>“I meant before.”</p>
<p>“Before just now?”</p>
<p>“Steve,” Bucky says, patiently, like trying to explain complex philosophical theorems to a child, “you kissed me two nights ago, when we stopped at Devils Tower.” His face goes dark, expression clouded. “You don’t remember that?”</p>
<p>He doesn’t, but--he would have. He would have memorized it, written it into the itinerary between the Black Thunder Coal Mine and the Most Photographed Barn in America. He didn’t do it last time, but he wanted to.</p>
<p>“Wait, just.” His hand is still on Bucky’s arm, the metal warming under his touch. Distantly, he wonders if Bucky can feel it, if it’s anything like what Steve feels. He’s never asked. “It wasn’t--a one-time thing.” He doesn’t know where he gets the courage but it’s out there now and he won’t take it back. Bucky would probably forgive him if he did, but he’s not going to risk it.</p>
<p>Bucky visibly relaxes, his gaze gone soft, hopeful. Vulnerable. “Yeah?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, ‘course.”</p>
<p>“Good.”</p>
<p>Bucky crowds against him, self-consciousness dissipated in the moment he takes to step back in and kiss Steve for real this time. It’s just as sweet as before, like Steve imagined when he let himself, giving into the taste and feel of it, relaxing into Bucky’s hold on his waist, long and lingering. One turns into another turns into many and by the time Steve breaks away, breathless like he’s been winded, he’s changed. He stepped out of Howard Stark’s machine changed, he walked off that train in Switzerland changed, he fell to his knees in the middle of the street in DC changed. He’s not the same person he was three minutes ago and Bucky’s looking at him like he knows it.</p>
<p>Steve drops to a sitting position at the end of his bed, fingers hooked around Bucky’s hips because he’s not ready to stop touching him yet. </p>
<p>“Shit,” Bucky says, stroking a hand through Steve’s hair. “We’re fucked now, ain’t we?”</p>
<p>Steve presses his forehead to Bucky’s stomach to hide his smile. “I think so, Buck.”</p>
<p>Bucky pulls back to flop down on the bed, one hand resting behind his head and the other around the remote, the picture of indulgence. After soaking in the sight, Steve joins him. The bed squeaks beneath him as he tries to get comfortable, sitting an awkward but respectable distance away in case Bucky needs space. The new territory has Steve on edge, but not in a bad way. Peggy Carter would laugh if she knew it wasn’t just women that Steve was awkward around.</p>
<p>It only takes a minute of television noise breaking the silence before Bucky pulls him over and Steve goes with it, head pillowed on Bucky’s chest, gaze turned to the television. Bucky points it out, the documentary about pre-WWII Catholic school houses, and they share an ironic laugh. </p>
<p>As the sun dips lower in the sky, the light shines through the window, right into Steve’s field of vision. He shields his eyes with his hand, but the light bleeds around it, glowing brighter until it fills the room and he floats on it, suspended, blinded, the warmth of Bucky’s chest falling away until it’s gone.</p>
<p>//</p>
<p>A ruler snaps down hard on the desk, an inch away from the elbow Steve’s using to prop his face up. He jumps in surprise, gaze pulled from the view through the window to Sister Catherine’s stern expression as she stares down her nose, mouth pinched in disapproval. Kitty, he’d heart Father Patrick called her once while Steve snuck through the church when he should have been in class, but Sister Catherine suits her better. </p>
<p>The memory, anachronistic, appears from nowhere. The light is gone, and so is the motel room, the soft breathing, the noise of the--Steve glances around at the rows of desks, the heads bent over them, pencils scratching against paper, the smell of chalk. He remembers this room but not the day, not the test in front of him, barely recognises his own hands and how frail his body feels against the heat sticking the rough cotton of his shirt to his skin. </p>
<p>Two seats over, Bucky fails to hide a laugh with his hand, smirking across his test paper. Steve feels his eyes on him, feels Sister Catherine’s stare until she continues patrolling, ruler in hand, shoes clacking against the wood floor in search of more victims. </p>
<p>Steve’s paper is a mess of scribbled drawings and answers to questions he barely understands, too exhausted from his last round of croupe to pay anymore than necessary attention to what Bucky taught him about American history pre-Depression. It was a hard winter and Steve’s schooling has suffered even with Bucky’s help.</p>
<p>Except--that’s not right. The calendar on the wall says April 1932, and Bucky was away for the Spring, with his parents upstate while Steve’s health kept him back another year. He didn’t take this test and Bucky wasn’t in this room with him, he--</p>
<p>Later, Steve’s dozing under one of the bald cypress trees, the ones that have been there since before he was born and will probably outlive him, when he hears a voice whisper next to his ear in an accent he doesn’t recognise. He’s expecting the Wallace boys to be standing behind him, playing a joke that’s about as funny as beating on little Mikey Gershwin, who’s shorter that Steve and just as wiry, but no one’s there. </p>
<p>A breeze picks up the papers he was drawing on and blows them across the courtyard. They’re nothing special, quick illustrations he started when he should’ve been paying attention in class, his ma’s gonna have his hide if he gets kicked out, and he weighs up the loss with the energy he hasn’t got to chase after them.</p>
<p>Bucky’s already there, scooping them up and holding each one up to the sunlight with a keen, discerning eye before Steve even moves. His movements are exaggerated, theatrical, his shoulders already too broad. He’s bigger now, from his last growth spurt. He takes up the space that Steve’s body can’t. </p>
<p>“You got some talent, Rogers. The teachers oughtta be learning from you.”</p>
<p>Bucky swaggers over and Steve rolls his eyes, smiles then winces at the way it pulls the skin of his cheek, swelling into a bruise and no doubt bright red from where Dave Wallace’s fist connected with it. Bucky hisses in sympathy and leans over to inspect Steve’s face while he drops the papers in his lap. “Hate to see the other guy.” Steve bats his prying hands away.</p>
<p>“Quit sweet-talking.”</p>
<p>Bucky smirks, close enough for the full effect to hit Steve. “Bank’s closed, tough guy.” He drops down next to Steve with a laugh, shoulders pressed together against the bark and the sun warming their ankles.</p>
<p>“They’re gonna drop you if you keep sneaking out like this, you know. Or worse, start charging you.”</p>
<p>“Oh yeah?” Steve’s hands drop to the first sketch, filling up the empty space he hasn’t shaded in. “What are you doing out here, then?”</p>
<p>Bucky, the lord of leisure, already has his sleeves rolled up, top button undone, shoes kicked off despite the spring chill in the air and the carefully crafted schoolboy image he carries around like an old coat. Must be Steve’s influence. People always tell Bucky to stay away from that no good Rogers kid, and Bucky always tells them to mind their own business. Steve’s stomach tightens at the thought of having any sway over him.</p>
<p>“Working up a tan,” Bucky muses. He crosses his ankles and tips his head back, eyes closed. </p>
<p>Steve sketches without thinking, not at all surprised to see Bucky’s pose forming under his hand. Bucky is almost all Steve draws these days. If he’s noticed, he’s never said anything.</p>
<p>“Won’t matter much. This time next year I’ll be out.”</p>
<p>“Doing what, huh? Getting beat up by even bigger idiots behind the drugstore while I get carted off to City College?”</p>
<p>Steve pauses sketching at the note in Bucky’s voice--disappointment. It’s not a sound he likes to hear. “I’ll get a job at the docks or something.”</p>
<p>“With hands like these--” Bucky reaches out for one, turning it over to show the delicate pale skin of Steve’s palm, nothing like his father’s hands, something Steve is embarrassed about, but Bucky’s not making fun. “--<i>artiste</i> hands, why would you wanna ruin them? Makes no sense. You could get a job working for the papers. Hell, go to art school, you’re good enough.”</p>
<p>As much as Bucky likes to live in the moment, he sure does talk about the future like anything could happen if he believes hard enough. He’s still holding Steve’s hand.</p>
<p>“You know I ain’t got the money for that, Buck.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, yeah, I hear ya. What if you did, though? Tell me you wouldn’t do it.”</p>
<p>“Bucky,” Steve says, exasperated and short of breath. The pollen in the air makes his nose itch, makes it hard to breathe. There’s people jumping out of buildings from how bad the Depression is, smuggling hooch across all kinds of borders, talking about a war that’s on the horizon, and Bucky wants to daydream about art school. Steve takes his hand away, sighs. “‘Course I would. I’d be an idiot to pass that up, right?”</p>
<p>“Can never tell with you, Steve.” Bucky’s top lip lifts in a smirk, and Steve shoves him playfully. “What are we talking here--five thousand? Ten?”</p>
<p>“What would you even do with that much jack?” It’s never occurred to Steve to count beyond the dimes he trades for weekly groceries.</p>
<p>“Me? I’d buy a house. One for you, too. Somewhere nice with lots of light. We could live right next to each other, settle down like a couple of a white collar joes, what d’you say?”</p>
<p>Steve keeps his expression neutral under Bucky’s scrutiny. He means settle down with other people, with the kinds of girls he pretends he isn’t kissing in the confessional so Steve doesn’t get jealous, the ones he dreams out loud of sneaking off to the dance halls in the Village with, but Steve’s stomach ties itself in knots thinking maybe Bucky meant settle down with each other. It’s a dangerous thought to have.</p>
<p>The silence grows thick once Steve’s pencil stills its scratching. For a second he hears it again, the voice, his name accented and sudden laughter that falls away when Bucky shifts beside him. He reaches into his pocket for a cigarette that looks ridiculous hanging out the side of his mouth.</p>
<p>Steve digs the matches out of his own pocket and tosses them over amid Bucky’s muffled <i>’Anks</i>. The match sparks in Bucky’s fingers, erupting in a blaze of yellow light and Steve has just enough time to register the heat in his palm, the constriction of arms around his waist, the voice saying, louder this time, “let me tell you a story, Captain,” before the light engulfs him.</p>
<p>//</p>
<p>The knock on the door sounds for a second time, polite, almost timid, as if the person on the other side is trying not to disturb Steve, despite knocking on his front door at 11:15 at night. Steve’s landlord, who won’t answer his requests to fix the water heater but is prone to unscheduled and erratic visits at all hours of the evening, has a distinctive enough knock that Steve knows when to duck for cover, but this isn’t one of those times. It’s a welcome distraction from the mess of his work desk and the hours he’s spent staring at his computer screen. He wasn’t getting anything done tonight anyway. </p>
<p>Bucky’s waiting on the other side of the door, hand raised as if to knock a third time. He’s wearing only a towel and a look of such utter despair that Steve fights the urge to laugh. Bucky looks down at Steve, surprised. Maybe he thought no one was home. Steve has to look up to not laugh in his face.</p>
<p>“Hi,” Bucky says. His left hand hitches the towel up. Steve stares at his arm, expecting--something. It’s unmarked, tanned, no tattoos.</p>
<p>“Hi,” Steve parrots. He almost steps back automatically before he remembers that it’s socially awkward to welcome people who are practically strangers into his apartment without actually inviting them, even ones who are almost naked and sopping wet. </p>
<p>“4G, um, we met the other day? I got your mail by mistake.”</p>
<p>It takes a moment for Steve to realise he’s supposed to say something. “Right. Of course, I remember that. Is there, uh, something I can do for you?” </p>
<p>“This is kind of embarrassing but my hot water system is busted and I just got called in for a shift. Could I--?” He stops, looking pained. Steve’s enjoying himself too much to put him out of his misery. “Uh. Use yours? I swear, this isn’t a line.”</p>
<p>This time Steve does step back. “Sure, Buck,” he says automatically, words tripping off his tongue, actions overriding his higher brain function, “you don’t need to ask.”</p>
<p>Bucky gives him a look Steve can’t decipher, caution maybe, the narrow-eyed glance of suspicion that subsides into something else as he steps into the apartment and takes it all in. “Nice place,” he says, whistling. He moves with easy grace and confidence for someone who’s only wearing a towel and still glistening from whatever semblance of a shower he managed to take before he knocked on Steve’s door. He looks exactly like he had when--the memory struggles to surface, like diving underwater with chlorine stinging your eyes, everything distorted and lacking detail, out of place. </p>
<p>Bucky seems to take in the space as he walks across the apartment--minimal at best, populated by functional furniture and bare walls, a far cry from the last apartment and his roommate who liked to use the walls as a canvas. The coffee machine draws Bucky’s eye, an industrial chrome monster that dwarfs the lesser items surrounding it--the fridge Natasha gave Steve that he suspects was stolen from an ex in a fit of scorned revenge; the array of steak knives affixed to a metal belt above the stove that were a present from Tony&amp;Pepper and that he’s never used; a hand-made dining room table that was at one point meant for the house he and Sharon planned to buy together before she broke off the engagement for reasons Steve still hasn’t come to terms with, a gift from Sam, thoughtful but premature--all the items Steve’s built his new life and new apartment around that now revolve around the coffee machine. He’s sure he bought it for a specific reason other than to fill the void of a six-year long relationship, but he can’t remember it. The details are fuzzy. It’s probably not as important as he feels it is. </p>
<p>Steve closes the door, feeling awkward. Now that he’s got Bucky here, he doesn’t know what to do with him. </p>
<p>“Bathroom?” Bucky prompts.</p>
<p>“Down the hall to the right.”</p>
<p>Bucky disappears, a trail of wet footsteps left behind him as proof that he’s more than something Steve dreamed up. Steve catches sight of himself in the hallway mirror. He looks the same, too, but--the same as what? Blonde hair, pale skin, blue eyes hidden behind wire frames, unimpressive height, a bunch of facts that he recites like a shopping list. The picture looks familiar and feels wrong. His arms weigh nothing when he lifts them, his toes flex against the hardwood floor, his back aches when he twists from leaning over his workbench all night, which only aggravates his scoliosis. The shower starts up while he’s standing there outside the bathroom. </p>
<p>For lack of anything better to do, Steve goes to make coffee.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The next day, Bucky is at his door again.</p>
<p>He holds up a plastic bag full of take-out that smells good enough to make Steve’s stomach growl.</p>
<p>“So,” Bucky says, “I realized I never thanked you. I thought I’d make it right by buying you dinner.”</p>
<p>Steve hasn’t eaten all day, too caught up in code that refuses to program the way he wants it to, and ushers Bucky inside before he can rescind his offer.</p>
<p>“You really didn’t have to,” Steve says, even as he sets out plates and chopsticks on the coffee table. “Feel free to bring me food anytime, though. Oh my god, are those shu mai dumplings?”</p>
<p>Bucky watches with amusement as Steve shovels half a box of noodles down in one mouthful. He’s barely started on his own while Steve’s plate is half-finished. But he doesn’t take long to catch up, and, when they’re done, Bucky sprawls out on the couch while Steve stacks cartons and plates for easy clean up--later, when he’s woken up from his impending food coma. </p>
<p>“I have to admit, that place is pretty good,” Bucky says, impressed with his food choices and Steve finds it charming instead of arrogant. The way Bucky takes up space with his body and his words shows how comfortable he is with his size.</p>
<p>“You’ve never tried it before?”</p>
<p>He shakes his head. “Just moved into the neighborhood.”</p>
<p>“You picked well then, for a newbie. Second best noodles in Brooklyn.”</p>
<p>“You’re gonna tell me yours are number one, right?” Bucky teases.</p>
<p>Steve laughs. “Definitely not. My friends have forbidden me from cooking, with good reason, so I practically live off take out and whatever leftovers Sam brings over.”</p>
<p>“Your boyfriend?” Bucky asks lightly, his expression guarded.</p>
<p>“Is that a problem?” Steve squares his shoulders, and maybe it’s because he’s rusty but it takes him until Bucky says, “Maybe for me, yeah,” to realize Bucky is flirting with him. “Um, no, he’s not my boyfriend,” Steve says, to cover his embarrassment.</p>
<p>“How about I cook dinner for you, then?”</p>
<p>He holds Steve’s gaze, body tensed with held breath.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Steve says. “I’d like that.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Almost two weeks pass before they see each other again, anything more than passing conversation in the hallways as they rush to or from their respective jobs. Steve spends night as the office working on a new project and comes home late enough that Bucky’s already left for his late shift slinging drinks for the queer elite at Prospect Bar, a place Steve’s only been to once on a date with a venture capitalist that was as bad as it was expensive.</p>
<p>On the day their schedules finally synchronize, Bucky brings over two bags full of food, more food than Steve’s fridge has seen since he moved in.</p>
<p>“I’m used to cooking with meat, so this is a bit of an adjustment,” Bucky confesses. He moves around the kitchen with ease, as seemingly comfortable as if he lived here, too.</p>
<p>“If I knew you were going to so much trouble--” Steve begins, before Bucky cuts him off by saying, “I like a challenge,” and winking. He sets Steve to peeling vegetables while, without any prompting from Steve, he searches through the cupboards for what he needs. Until the moment Bucky holds it up, Steve couldn’t have found the baking dish if he was paid to. </p>
<p>“You’ve got two.” Bucky pulls the second dish out.</p>
<p>“Who remembers a thing like that,” Steve says.</p>
<p>Bucky sautees the mushrooms Steve slices for him, adding garlic, wine, a bunch of herbs Steve can’t name. He talks while he cooks about how his parents are American but he was born in Russia, grew up travelling through Europe as a child until they settled in New York, how he learned to cook from watching the various troupe of maids and chefs that worked for his parents. </p>
<p>“Do you ever think about doing it professionally?” Steve tastes the sauce Bucky holds out for him, one hand on the spoon and the other cupped beneath it, a burst of flavor so good Steve has to close his eyes against it.</p>
<p>Bucky shakes his head. “I’m making more money in tips right now than I would working sixteen hours days in a hot kitchen with eight other chefs. Besides, it would drive me bananas.” He loads the baking dish, filled with a mixture of potatoes, turnips, mushrooms, and topped with Gruyere cheese, into the oven to bake before he starts on the appetizer. “Lettuce wraps with hoisin-peanut sauce.” He arranges them artfully on a plate, drizzling the sauce with a flourish a sculptor might have when unveiling their newest piece. Steve hasn’t even eaten yet and he’s already a little bit in love.</p>
<p>Bucky listens to Steve talk as the main dish, “Baeckeoffe, we’d always have it after Sunday mass when we stayed in Alsace,” bakes in the oven. Steve’s life isn’t as colorful--he travelled to London several years ago, but he leaves out that it was Sharon’s idea, how he met her extended family and loved them so much he almost convinced her to move there permanently, how he wouldn’t be able to go back without thinking of her. </p>
<p>He planned to become a games designer before the economy turned, but he makes games in his spare time in an attempt to ruin any credibility he has as a real adult. Bucky listens, laughs at Steve’s jokes, pours Steve expensive wine. The main course tastes as amazing as it smells, and Steve only makes it two bites in before he leans across the breakfast bar, draws Bucky in, and kisses him. Bucky lets him, and it’s just as good as the first time--</p>
<p>the first time, marching two days out of Azzano, the winds freezing the blood in their boots, gunfire in the distance, stolen in the woods after a bomb that knocked Steve down but didn’t kill him, wet warm and filthy like Steve imagined it would be kissing Bucky, that this might be the death of him, like this or--</p>
<p>sixteen and drunk off stolen gin, giggling to themselves, into their hands, shushing each other quiet, trying not to wake up Bucky’s sisters, Steve kissing Bucky’s big mouth shut because drunk logic makes him brave--</p>
<p>--Bucky lets him. Bucky kisses him back.</p>
<p>They lie awake that night in Steve’s bed, just touching, feeling time and space stretch for them, only as old as the minutes, trading stories until they fall asleep. Bucky’s still there in the morning, sprawled across Steve’s bed like he belongs there, still sleeping when Steve leaves for work.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Natasha invites Steve out to join her and the others in celebrating her engagement to the future Mr Clint Romanoff, and on a whim Steve invites Bucky. Sometime between the celebratory tequila toast and the celebratory bottles of Cointreau on the house, courtesy of Tony&amp;Pepper’s contacts, Bucky manages to charm everyone. By the time they hit the celebratory strip clubs, all of them have congratulated Steve on a great catch, even Natasha and Clint who both claim that if Steve doesn’t want Bucky, they’ll have him.</p>
<p>Bucky takes it in stride, sticks close to Steve through the night, pays for the taxis they take even amid Steve’s protests, kisses Steve to shut him up. That night, Steve takes him to bed for the first time. Back bowed, hands fisted in the sheets, a sheen of sweat covering his skin, Bucky is the most beautiful thing Steve’s ever seen. After that, Bucky doesn’t spend any more nights at his own apartment.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Most of their fights happen because Bucky worries about Steve’s health too much and Steve doesn’t worry enough. Bucky wants to move back to Europe, but Steve has a life and friends and a job in Brooklyn, he’s lived his whole life in Brooklyn, he’s afraid that if he starts travelling with Bucky he’ll like it too much and won’t want to come back. Steve feels himself slipping into the gray area where two people who spend so much time together start to pick up each other’s mannerisms, their stories. Was Steve the one who hit the panic button and stopped all the trains in Europe, or was it Bucky? Was Steve always a vegetarian, or did that happen the night Bucky brought over Vietnamese?</p>
<p>“I need space,” Steve says, looking out the kitchen window and not at Bucky frying eggs, barefoot and dressed in Steve’s City Tech shirt.</p>
<p>Bucky puts the spatula down. “Okay,” he says, like they’ve rehearsed this. Four months condensed into four words. Steve can’t remember what life was like before they met. Maybe there is no before, there’s only an after.</p>
<p>Bucky stays away for a week. Steve calls in sick from work just to spend hours designing games, watching Scandal, reading the supernatural pulps Bucky left lying around, staring out at the placid-blue sky that never changes, only falls into varying degrees of black once night comes. When he looks in the mirror these days, what he sees makes sense. He’s always had this frame, these muscles, these lungs. He catches sight of a figure, eyes a colder blue than the sky, a swish of green and black, before it’s gone. He learns how to fall in love with the night because it’s easier to look at. Then the week is over and Steve finds Bucky waiting on the park bench across the street from their apartment building. They lace their fingers together and sit side by side, not talking for a while. People pass by and time moves, but they don’t.</p>
<p>“Steve, I,” Bucky says. He has to clear his throat. “If you don’t want me back--”</p>
<p>“Just, stop talking for a minute.” Steve stares at their joined hands, feels the weight of Bucky’s in his palm, heavy and warm. When he looks up again, the figure is there, same eyes, same cloak. He smiles like a Disney villain, and he’s mouthing words Steve can’t hear over the noise of street traffic. Someone passes in front of him and then he’s gone. “Have you ever noticed how empty the skyline is? It’s supposed to be beautiful, but.”</p>
<p>Bucky stares like he’s trying to find the right answer. “No, I’ve never noticed.”</p>
<p>“Neither did I, until a week ago. But there it is--just look. Empty, blue, boring.”</p>
<p>Bucky sighs. “So we’re here to talk about the scenery?” He doesn’t even look. It’s so glaringly obvious to Steve now that he can see it, but no one else seems to notice that the sky is a singular, opaque color, with no clouds or varying degrees of blue to break up the mass. Just like no one noticed a cloaked figure standing on the side of the road.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” Steve says. He squeezes Bucky’s hand. “I fucked up, I’m really sorry. Will you come home?”</p>
<p>Bucky fits his left hand to Steve’s cheek, and it feels warm, feels human. He brings their foreheads together. “You don’t have to apologize, I fucked up, too--”</p>
<p>“Bucky, don’t. Just say you’ll come home.” </p>
<p>Steve feels his shoulders shake with the cold. If they stay out here any longer he risks sickness, pneumonia again or worse, and then Bucky will be even more upset. </p>
<p>As soon as he says it the mood breaks, the weight on Steve’s chest lifts, he breathes easier. Bucky comes home.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A week later at his office Christmas party, Steve stands under the mistletoe and tells Bucky he loves him.</p>
<p>“I know,” Bucky murmurs, drunk on eggnog, cheeks flushed. He says it back.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Their one year anniversary falls on the same year Sam passes the bar and Tony&amp;Pepper announce that they’re pregnant. The group goes out to celebrate, Steve drinks too much, Bucky has to carry him home. Later, lying in bed while he sobers up and Bucky strokes his hair, Steve loses himself in the feeling.</p>
<p>“Do you believe in fate, Buck?” </p>
<p>Bucky hums in agreement, humoring him because he’s drunk and fell over twice getting in the door. “Sure I do.”</p>
<p>“Even if we didn’t meet here, in Brooklyn, we still woulda met somewhere. Maybe in Europe.” Steve yawns into Bucky’s arm, presses back into his weight where they fit together like parentheses. </p>
<p>“That first night I came to your door,” Bucky says, then pauses. Steve’s shallow breathing fills the silence. “You already knew my name.”</p>
<p>Of course I did, Steve wants to say. I’ve known you my whole life, through decades neither of us should’ve lived and some we didn’t. I know that your favourite ice cream flavor is chocolate pecan, and that you cried the first time you watched The Wizard of Oz, and you don’t talk about the war but I know you think about it more than you’ll ever admit. But how can Steve say that, explain it, when he doesn’t even understand it himself? </p>
<p>Steve says, “Tell me a story,” and Bucky obliges, says, “Okay, there’s these two guys, these ghost hunters...”</p>
<p>Steve feels his palm grow hot, heavy with smooth weight that isn’t Bucky’s fingers, and when he opens it, whatever is inside starts to glow. Bucky doesn’t react to the light, though. Steve must be dreaming. He feels the light travel from his hand to the rest of his body, and then he doesn’t feel anything.</p>
<p>//</p>
<p>A hand closes around Steve’s shoulder and he jerks back, disoriented, hits his elbow against the solid weight of the car door. Bucky takes his hand back, flesh and metal placed together on the steering wheel. His steel-edged gaze pins Steve down, caution and worry and fear in his eyes but not his expression.</p>
<p>“Steve,” he says, clipped, mouth a tight line. They’re driving down highway 59, just outside Douglas; Steve recognizes these hills even in the dark, the  nothingness in between, and a voice streams from the radio, crooning, <i>I built my heart up on the sweet foundations you give me</i>. Bucky doesn’t touch him again, doesn’t squeeze his hand, but he stares long enough that he misses the rabbit crossing the road and Steve panics, shouts, “Look out,” even as he grabs the steering wheel and jerks it. Bucky yells, swears, presses his hands to the dashboard to brace himself as the car swerves, Steve’s hands tightening on the wheel--</p>
<p>From the passenger seat, Bucky yells, “Fucking jackalopes. That’s the fourth one in an hour. What’s with this place?”</p>
<p>Steve gets the car under control as his heart rate slows to a normal pace. Touching the steering wheel is like touching coals. Next to him, Bucky continues to gripe, flicking the radio off. The voice disappears and silence fills its place.</p>
<p>Bucky must sense Steve’s anxiety because he says, “You alright? You should’ve run it over. One less angry bunny attacking hitch hikers.”</p>
<p>Steve nods, says, “Yeah.” Someone moves in the backseat, a slight rustle of clothing, an exhaled breath that raises the hair on the back of Steve’s neck. He can feel their presence like an absence where there should be a body, but when he glances in the rearview mirror, there’s nothing to see. “Where are we headed?”</p>
<p>Bucky rolls his eyes, a move so exaggerated it requires his whole body. “Who screwed your head on today? Douglas, another couple hours down Hell Highway. I swear, I’m never coming back to Wyoming, I don’t care how good the pay is. Fury can find another investigator to desecrate miners’ graves and waste all day questioning people who don’t pay attention to the freaky shit that happens around them.”</p>
<p>Steve is too surprised to respond, at both what Bucky is saying, which makes no sense, and the sheer volume of words. He hasn’t spoken that much since before the war. A minute ago he was silent, like he usually is when he drives; even though he’s getting better he prefers to listen to the radio, and sometimes he’ll sing along, which Steve finds comforting for how human it is. Before that, there was an apartment, they were back in Brooklyn--</p>
<p>“Buck, do you remember the war?”</p>
<p>Steve doesn’t look down at Bucky’s arm. He’s getting better at this--these jumps between realities--and he doesn’t want to be any more surprised. </p>
<p>“Which one, pal--Afghan, Iraq, war on terror, Ebola, drugs? There are a lot of wars.”</p>
<p>“Second World War.”</p>
<p>“Wasn’t alive for that one. I’m only thirty-two, you know.” His expression turns thoughtful, his mouth quirks up at the corner. “Is this us getting to know each other? It’s nice, real sweet.” He sounds like he’s been spending too much time with Tony Stark, even though the Bucky Steve knows now normally avoids him at all costs.</p>
<p>“Don’t we know each other?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, I guess. How long’s it been working together? Two months? I guess we know each other as well as two guys who travel across the country shooting monsters in the face can.”</p>
<p>Steve files that last part away for later, when he’s sure Bucky’s not joking. “Huh, I never thought of it like that. Were you born in America?”</p>
<p>“You better believe. Swaddled in red, white, and blue.”</p>
<p>“You’d make a good soldier, you know that?”</p>
<p>“Where do you think I got this?” He says, and holds up his left hand. It’s the same colour as his right and moves just as fluidly, but the skin is a synthetic coating, hairless, that runs all the way under the sleeve of his t-shirt.</p>
<p>Some things are the same no matter what changes. Steve’s own body is--different, the same, he doesn’t know. He takes a shot in the dark with his next question. “Did you, uh, read my file?”</p>
<p>Bucky shrugs. “Skimmed it.”</p>
<p>“What did it say about me?”</p>
<p>“You used to be five-six. The Erskine project, right? They tried to sign me up for that, too, after Baghdad. Wasn’t for me.” He gives Steve a considering look. “Seems to have worked for you, though.” He drums his fingers along his thigh, restless probably, bored. He always had a hard time playing passenger.</p>
<p>Steve turns back to the road, the tunnel of the car’s headlights guiding them. They pass several motels, the same one as--where they stayed before, didn’t they?--but Bucky doesn’t ask to stop for the night, just keeps sharpening his bowie knife with careful, deliberate strokes, so Steve doesn’t stop.</p>
<p>After a few hours, like Bucky said, they arrive in Douglas and find a hotel. Steve should be exhausted but he’s not, he’s wired from not enough exercise and a terrible sleep schedule. Bucky shuffles to the bathroom, dropping his bag on one of the beds as he goes, without bothering to check for bugs, explosives, that the exits are safe.</p>
<p>Then again, there’s no reason to. Steve shakes the thought off as he reaches into his bag for the rock salt that he pours in a line beneath the door, a precaution he’s insisted on ever since Sam was nearly impaled in his sleep by a trickster spirit last year. It won’t keep out anything corporeal, but that’s what the locks and the .45s are for.</p>
<p>Bucky comes back into the room in sleep pants, shaking his hair out of his ponytail as he goes. He’s not wearing a shirt and for a second Steve’s memory starts to play tricks on him, thinking he’s seen this picture before, except the details aren’t all there--Steve tries not to stare at his arm or his body, which is toned but not whipcord thin from the control he exercises in punishing work-outs and only eating enough to keep his body working. He carries bulk and fills the space around him, he--</p>
<p>Steve reaches out for Bucky’s hand, just to touch him, and ends up overcome with the need to pull him in and cup his cheek. Even as he does it, he knows it’s too intimate for whatever they are. Something like this doesn’t belong to this time.</p>
<p>Bucky tenses, pulls back with a sigh. “Steve. We talked about this.”</p>
<p>He’s expecting the “you know I’m not like that” he’s heard when they were seventeen and sober, when they were camped out on the front lines around a fire while the rest of the Howling Commandoes slept only yards away. </p>
<p>“I don’t do hooking up on the regular,” Bucky says instead.</p>
<p>Somehow, that’s worse. Bucky not being into guys is one thing, but this time it’s just Steve he’s not interested in. Steve lets go of his arm, as his stomach coils into knots.</p>
<p>“I can toss you a quickie if you want,” Bucky says, conceding, like it’s nothing to him, “but it can’t get complicated. We’re still here to do a job.”</p>
<p>Steve steps back like he’s been struck. Bucky’s the only one who can hit him hard enough to make him lose his balance. “No, I--I get it. It’s fine. You’re right, we should be professional. Professional paranormal investigators.”</p>
<p>Bucky shrugs. “Your call.” He’s casual about it, the one thing they’ve never been when it comes to each other. It’s unnerving in a way that traumatized, child-like Bucky never was.</p>
<p>Steve’s embarrassment is cut short by his phone ringing through the tense silence. “Yeah,” he says, as Natasha says, “What the <i>fuck</i>, Rogers. You didn’t tell me the case you dumped on us was a clurichaun.” Bucky’s eyebrows lift in amusement as Natasha’s tinny voice echoes through the room.</p>
<p>“Oh, uh. Sorry about that. I guess it’s not going well.”</p>
<p>Natasha snorts a humorless laugh. Bucky mouths, “Wasn’t it a chupacabra?” and Steve repeats the question, cutting short Natasha’s diatribe. “Yes,” she says, “it was both of those things.”</p>
<p>“If I’d known I would have handled it myself.”</p>
<p>“Blah blah blah,” Natasha says, sounding like she’s gearing up for a long one, "next time you can be the one covered in goat blood, searching through backwoods in bumfuck nowhere for a pot of cursed gold.” </p>
<p>Bucky moves towards the door with a pack of cigarettes in his hand, shaking his hair out, brushing past Steve on his way out. Steve lets Natasha go on until she signs off with, “Shit, I gotta go, Sam says hi, by the way,” and Steve’s left holding the phone, wondering what just happened. The sight he catches of Bucky through the open door causes a swell of emotions in his chest, like his skin is stretched too tight for his body. He doesn’t sleep well that night and when they head out the next morning the drive between the police station and witnesses is tense, Steve too tired to make more than necessary conversation.</p>
<p>“That was a gigantic waste of time,” Bucky says after they interview their fourth witness, who provided no more information than was already in the file Steve read through that morning. Memories come to him in jolts and starts--salting and burning the corpse of an investment banker last month whose spirit turned malevolent and started haunting a school; Natasha’s farewell speech when they were both assigned new partners, which was a cursory, “Good luck with this one,” as she levelled her gaze at Bucky.</p>
<p>“Nat told us the same thing,” Steve says. “Four missing bodies, no discernible connection, no idea of what took them.” He pushes his fries around on his plate, appetite gone.</p>
<p>“That could be anything, though,” Bucky says, between bites of his sub. “Spirit, demon, human. Three of the witnesses mentioned phone calls, though.”</p>
<p>“And all were taken from town. Or, they all disappeared. Something could’ve lured them out.”</p>
<p>“Crocotta?” Bucky offers. </p>
<p>“Worth looking into.” Steve finishes the rest of his food out of habit, adding, “Crocottas only eat the souls, so where would it hide the bodies?”</p>
<p>Bucky pauses with the last bite held to his mouth before he sighs and pushes his plate away. “We’re going into the sewers again, aren’t we. Do you do this to me on purpose?”</p>
<p>“Absolutely,” Steve says. Sewers aren’t the worst part of the job, but they’re a close third to the near-constant danger and being covered head to toe in ectoplasm. To Bucky’s delight, they skip the sewers and drive out to the mines instead, which are just as dank but not as revolting. At the very least they don’t unearth a grave full of miners, but it wouldn’t be the first time. Bucky fills the silence, mostly with complaining, as they pick through the underground network. </p>
<p>As it turns out, he hates enclosed spaces with no visible exits even more voraciously than wading through garbage water.</p>
<p>“Next time Rushman and Wills can finish their own jobs. You know who ditches a case before it’s done? Fucking amateurs, that’s who.”</p>
<p>Their path is lit by a string of torches over their heads that hang low enough they need to duck, but they keep their flashlights held up anyway. Steve has a duffel bag loaded with extra weapons on his back, plus the shotgun he’s carrying and the pistol in his belt; Bucky has at least half a dozen knives on him, most of them silver, and his treasured .9mm Grach.</p>
<p>“You know they’re fucking, right.” Most of what Bucky says is like radio static, but Steve’s been tuned into him for years, operating on Bucky’s wavelength, and he’s so unused to Bucky talking that he doesn’t want to tune him out. </p>
<p>“That’s what they say about us, Buck.”</p>
<p>Bucky huffs in annoyance. “You keep calling me that. Buck, <i>Bucky</i>. I introduce you to my sister one time and then I never hear the end of it.”</p>
<p>Steve has to look over his shoulder to see Bucky’s expression, but it’s there, the gritted teeth, his scrunched up nose. The light throws his profile into sharp relief. He’s got his pistol in hand, but he lets it hang by his side, not showing the same danger Steve feels, if he feels it. “What do you want me to call you?”</p>
<p>“Just call me Jay, like everyone else.” He brushes aside a rat with his foot and it scampers away from what it was eating, leaving a trail of tiny, bloody pawprints in the dirt. “I guess we know where the bodies are.”</p>
<p>They continue through the maze, ducking their heads, stepping over piles of remains, some unrecognizable, or an item of clothing that makes Steve’s stomach turn more than the musty copper smell.</p>
<p>“What would you be doing if you weren’t doing this?” Steve asks, when the suspense of the hunt starts to go stale.</p>
<p>“In general or right now?” Steve shrugs. “I could go a Folgers and a Philly Cheese Steak right now. But I guess if I hadn’t fallen into this gig I’d have finished my Lit degree. Probably be a professor by now, teaching shithead English majors how to analyze Beowulf. Or Dracula, ha ha, get it?”</p>
<p>Steve ignores his terrible joke. “Never took you for a lover of the classics.”</p>
<p>“Trust me, I’m all about it.”</p>
<p>“It’s funny, I almost became a professor, too. Not a lot of service jobs for a five-foot-six chronic asthmatic. I was ready to settle for that, despite how badly I wanted to enlist. When Project Rebirth came up, I jumped at the chance.”</p>
<p>Bucky makes a noise of agreement that’s almost lost in the space. “I guess any sane person would.”</p>
<p>“You didn’t,” Steve points out.</p>
<p>“Sanity’s debateable.”</p>
<p>The smell grows worse the farther in they travel, passing more human remains and larger clusters of rats like a trail of breadcrumbs. When they come to where the tunnels converge, they find a dead end and in it the nest, where the smell is strong enough that Steve’s eyes start to water. In the split second he’s distracted, a shape flashes past behind them. Steve catches it out of the corner of his eye, spins around with his shotgun cocked at the same time Bucky does. This far down, there’s no wind, barely any air, but something crackles in the stillness, static electricity and anticipation. A voice tells Steve, “come to me,” while another says, “Let me tell you a story, Captain,” and Steve’s not sure which one he should be more afraid of.</p>
<p>The crocotta whips past them again, launches itself at Bucky and slams him into the far wall, lifting him off his feet by the grip it has on his throat. Bucky swings his knife, slashing at air, while Steve lunges, but the crocotta anticipates his move and knocks him back with one hand, the other still crushing Bucky’s windpipe. The shotgun goes off in Steve’s hand, a rookie mistake, and the shot goes wide. It hits the roof, the rock starts to collapse, and Steve, still rattled from the force of hitting the ground, and he watches through the falling rubble as a shape with green eyes and a horned crown laughs. Steve jumps to his feet and takes another shot, the metal hot under his fingers, yellow sparks shooting out of the barrel hard enough that he loses his footing, Bucky croaks out a warning, and then Steve falls.</p>
<p>//</p>
<p>His hand closes around a glass of wine and Bucky presses in close, lips to Steve’s ear, murmuring, “Dan Schultz is plastered already. He’s arguing with Mackenzie about peer-reviewed papers for evil scientists.”</p>
<p>Steve glances across the room where Schultz is gesturing wildly with his own glass of wine. “You should go offer some diplomacy,” he says, and Bucky snorts.</p>
<p>“Hell no. I’m going back for more of those crab cakes. Want anything?”</p>
<p>Steve shakes his head. He sips his wine, his third glass of the night, feeling a pleasant buzz already. He watches Bucky walk away, straightening his tweed jacket as he goes. On anyone else, it would be an ironic statement, but Bucky’s imperviousness to popular culture and its subsequent counter-culture also makes him oblivious to the code of hipster chic Steve embraces. He’s only wearing a tie tonight because Bucky forced one on him, a shade of blue that would compliment Bucky much better than it does Steve.</p>
<p>He turns back to the conversation in front of him, which in his absence has now changed from a discussion about how the law works to protect property rights--a topic Steve, resigned as he is to market research and the psychology of consumer behaviour, has little to contribute to--to a more heated discussion about the possibility of amendments to the Marriage Equality Act. He laughs along with Professor Holzer’s joke despite the way his stomach coils into a knot, before he’s caught up in Irving’s rapid-fire questioning about where he was for the last inter-faculty gathering, and why Bucky hadn’t brought him along sooner.</p>
<p>Steve’s only been teaching here for two months and he has a hard time remembering names sober. He’s better with brands.</p>
<p>“I don’t think I’ve ever seen James so happy,” Irving says. “He usually has some excuse to get out of these things, but I guess he must have wanted to keep you to himself?”</p>
<p>“Uh,” Steve says. “I guess.”</p>
<p>Irving claps him on the back, chortling through his oversized moustache. He reminds Steve of someone he met when he was younger, and Steve’s forgotten to point it out to Bucky in case the other man remembers better. “Well, now you’re part of the family we’ll be seeing you more often.”</p>
<p>Bucky’s never talked about office parties before, barely talks about work except for things his students say in class and the restrictions on his syllabus. They’ve been seeing less of each other lately, but now that Steve’s taken an interim position at the university, he’s subject to a part of Bucky’s life he didn’t get to see before. </p>
<p>“Tell me,” Irving says, “How long have you two known each other?”</p>
<p>Steve glances around. Dan Schultz has finished raving and is staring at the unnecessary ice sculpture in the middle of the room as if it holds the key to the universe. “Since we were fifteen. Huh, over a decade now.”</p>
<p>“High school sweethearts, then?” Irving continues before Steve has a chance to correct him, “We were wondering about this elusive boyfriend James refused to introduce us to. Or should I say partner?”</p>
<p>Bucky sidles up with a tray of crab cakes, color high on his cheeks like he'd been caught out in the cold. “Lover, actually.”</p>
<p>“Who?” Steve asks, trying to backtrack to the part of the conversation he understood. Irving tips his glass of brandy towards them. “We’re not--” he begins and then stops himself. It’s a perfect opportunity, the three glasses of wine tell him, though for what he isn’t sure yet. Maybe payback for the years of ribbing and tempered embarrassment Bucky’s inflicted on him. Steve’s nothing if not an opportunist. “--that public about it,” he finishes. “You know how it is.”</p>
<p>Irving puts his hands up in a gesture of neutrality, or surrender. “Say no more, Steve. Although, I do hope you don’t feel the need to hide here. This is a very tolerant and open-minded campus, despite certain topics of conversation. I’m sure James will tell you.” He finishes his drink in one go and tottles off with a, “It’s good to have you on board.”</p>
<p>“I think he likes me,” Steve says.</p>
<p>“He thinks we’re dating,” Bucky says, pointedly. “What did you say to him? I was only gone three minutes.”</p>
<p>Steve shrugs. “You’re always complaining about getting hit on by the librarians.”</p>
<p>“Trust me, pal, I wasn’t complaining.” He drops the tray of food on a nearby table and reaches for a drink. </p>
<p>“I recall a lot of wailing and head clutching and ‘make it stop, Steve’.”</p>
<p>“Pretty sure that was the hangover talking. Ellen brings me pumpkin spice lattes. Sure she’s old enough to be my mom, but you know what I think? Age is just an arbitrary measure of time.” He throws his last crab cake up in the air and catches it with his mouth, every bit the fratboy he was in college. </p>
<p>“Didn’t seem like I ruined your chances,” Steve says, his own attempt at neutrality, “apparently you’ve hinted at a boyfriend?”</p>
<p>Bucky shrugs, jaw clenched like he does when he’s embarrassed and trying not to show it. It’s very endearing.</p>
<p>“I didn’t know you were bisexual,” Steve says, trying not to laugh.</p>
<p>“Come on, baby, those women mean nothing to me,” Bucky croons, so overladen with schmooze that he can barely keep a straight face.</p>
<p> </p>
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